Home > NBC's Curry Grills JFK Mistress: Why Have You 'Burdened' People With Truth About Kennedy?

NBC's Curry Grills JFK Mistress: Why Have You 'Burdened' People With Truth About Kennedy?

February 9, 2012 - 4:57pm

In a live interview[1] with John F. Kennedy mistress Mimi Alford on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry fretted over her sharing unflattering details about the late president: "What
about Caroline [Kennedy], who is still alive?...Did you think about, as
you talk about unburdening yourself, the idea that you've burdened
other people now with this?" [Listen to the audio[2]]

Alford stood by her decision to go public with the affair: "Well, I
don't intentionally burden someone else. I'm telling my story. And that
is what – that is what I needed to do." Curry followed up: "Any
push-back from the Kennedy family? Yes or no?" Alford replied: "No,
nothing."

On Wednesday night's Rock Center, correspondent Meredith
Vieira was similarly sympathetic to the Kennedys, specifically wondering
why Alford chose to include in her new book a graphic account of the
president encouraging her to perform oral sex on then-White House
advisor Dave Powers:

This is going to be explosive. This is going to shock people and you
also had to know that in writing it, it was going to hurt some people,
maybe members of the Kennedy family, members of the Powers family.
Because it's powerful and it can't be corroborated. So what did you want
people to understand by including it in the book?

In edition to worrying about the fallout from the revelations, both
Curry and Vieira questioned Alford's credibility. Curry asked: "So what
do you say to people who say, 'Look, you're profiting off a story.
You're making money off of this.' What do you say to that?"

Vieira put almost an identical question to Alford: "There are going to
be people, Mimi, I promise you, who are going to watch this and they're
going to say, 'You know what? This woman is capitalizing on the
Kennedys. There's no reason she has to write this book, certainly
doesn't have to tell some of these stories that are shocking in
detail.'"

Midway through the Rock Center interview, host Brian Williams
remarked to Vieira: "I've written down a couple of words as I've been
watching. One of them is 'verification.' How do we know she's telling
the truth?"

On Wednesday's Nightly News[3],
Williams talked to Vieira about the upcoming interview and skeptically
wondered: "...we've already received a lot of response, a lot of
e-mails, people with the upbringing – sounds like a lot of us – with the
picture of John F. Kennedy in the house when we were kids, wondering,
why do this now? Why tell her story now?"

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